


Estranged and All Alone (Act II)

by actingwithportals



Series: We Are Wide Awake Now [6]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant (but we're kinda shrugging about most of it), Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Gen, Ghost Does Not Have A Good Time Folks, Ghost refers to themself without a name, Ghost uses they/them pronouns, Hurt No Comfort, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Self-Loathing, Violent/Accusatory Intrusive Thoughts, characters mentioned in the tags are mostly just briefly there, this is almost entirely focused on Ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: Something called to them through the dark, and many others along the way called to them through light and life.They had never been given a reason to answer calls before, or at least not that they could remember. But now, for some reason, they felt stirred to move.To what end those calls would bring them was something entirely out of their grasp of expectation. And yet, they answered all the same.
Relationships: Hornet & The Knight (Hollow Knight), The Knight & Hallownest Residents
Series: We Are Wide Awake Now [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740406
Comments: 13
Kudos: 121





	Estranged and All Alone (Act II)

**Author's Note:**

> I did not intend to delay this long before posting a new piece to this series, but my health has been all kinds of out of whack and writing is taking a lot more effort than it should lately.
> 
> Hopefully I won't be as slow with the next, but I make no promises. We are also still in backtracking territory and will be here for a couple more pieces (it'll be worth it I promise).
> 
> Title of this piece comes from the song The Void by Muse (hah).
> 
> (Please heed the warnings in the tags, this ride is a little rough.)

The Wastelands weren’t the worst thing they had come across.

By no means were they pleasant, and there was often years between the times when they saw a friendly mask passing by (and decades between that friendly mask actually _looking_ friendly in their direction), and the constant wind filled their insides with a chill entirely different from the cold of the _nothingness_ that they were used to. But the Wastelands weren’t entirely terrible; for the most part they were simply uneventful.

Uneventful was at least safe.

The sand, however, they could do without. It often kicked up in gusts that would blow into the holes of their mask, and despite their cloak protecting them from most discomforts, some grains still managed to find a way through to sting against their carapace. There were even some days when the winds would get so strong that the sands would rise like wisps of thread, curling around them in a choking embrace.

Not that choking was something they needed to worry about. The nothingness that composed of their insides didn’t require breath. And yet, with every wisp and every thread and every blinding wall of wailing sand, their throat would feel as if it had suddenly closed up with ash.

Something about the sensation brought flashes of blowing white to their memory, but they never dwelled on that for long.

Not all parts of the Wastelands were sandy, though. Some were instead barren with rocky cliffsides or dotted with dying and decrepit foliage. On even rarer occasions they would find streams or rivers, but the bugs that collected in these places were often not the sort they wanted to approach. Those kinds didn’t even pretend to show them a friendly mask, and instead greeted them with sharp claws and raised nails.

Water wasn’t that necessary. Not for them.

It might have been better were they not traveling alone, but the few and far between friendly bugs were only kind for a time, and never once did any of these offer companionship. Not that they had ever asked.

Not that they could.

But traveling alone had its merits. They might’ve not had someone to watch their back, but they also did not have to carry that responsibility for another. They only owed defense to themself, and in the Wastelands that was already more than enough of a burden.

Protecting others didn’t sit right for them, anyways.

Long had they accepted their isolation, made peace with the loneliness. And eventually, they welcomed it. So when a day came that the nothingness inside of them rang fervently in their mask like a plea from somewhere much too far away and yet close enough to be unpleasantly familiar, they were surprised to find that they easily picked up their little broken nail and began to journey towards it.

Their nothingness had been silent for as long as they could remember, had never once vibrated with a call from somewhere far off or close by. But the cries that echoed through it now held an unsettling comfort, and some part of them that they must have buried long ago desperately wanted to call that voice _home_. As far as they knew, they’d never had one of those.

That thought made something like fear creep in their chest, and dubious hope blossom.

They journeyed faster.

They were not sure from where the call had come, but when they finally approached a cliffside heralded by a ghastly breeze, a heavy weight settled in their chest. Something about this place spoke of pain and regret, and too many promises long-since broken.

It would have been better for them to turn back without a single glance behind.

And yet they pressed onward.

It wasn’t long before they reached the peak of the cliffside, and far below they could see lights of lumafly lamps twinkling amidst what they imagined were some remnants of a little town, still clinging to life in this decrepit place.

They had a terrible feeling it would be some of the last pieces of life they would find here. For whatever called to them – through that nothingness that was so integral to themself but seemed to fill other bugs with dread at the very sight of it – didn’t ring in their mind as something that lived and breathed like bugs should.

Like they didn’t.

Something terrible awaited, just below the surface of twinkling lights and promises of fragmented life. But they had come all this way to answer the call; there would be no sense in turning back now.

Without further consideration, they dropped into the dark.

* * *

Hallownest.

They knew this place. The how and the why was still beyond their grasp, but they knew the name with the same level of intimacy one knows a nail pierced into their side, or a poison that slowly eats away their flesh. Though they didn’t know how, they knew the voice that spoke its name through light and whispers at the entrance to the once eternal kingdom, and they knew the bite with which that voice called forward into the dark, phantom teeth seeking to bury themselves in their chitin like a bed of spikes reaching out for them to come and rest.

Hallownest was a place of ghosts and shadows, and the further down they went, the further in they delved, the more they felt with a sinking suspicion that they might be one of them.

Their first stop after leaving the town above the kingdom’s entrance had been to the place where they felt that nothingness inside of themself stir them to approach the most. It was a strange building – some sort of temple they later realized by word of a kindly pill bug they met at its door. And though there was no discernible way to enter or even peer within, they knew somehow, deep in their nothingness, that whatever called out to them with such insistence was sealed inside.

It made them ache with a pain they couldn’t place, but it pressed against their mind one singular thought that demanded to not be ignored: _help_.

Whatever it took, they would open the temple, and release the thing that had reached out so far for them to answer. No matter what struggles they would face in their endeavor, no matter what further pains it could bring.

_No cost too great._

They swore this to the darkness of the door before them and traveled onward into the light of the kingdom behind.

* * *

Hallownest was sick.

They could see it in the eyes of the bugs they met along the roads, their bodies little more than husks that reacted to them with a vengeance that did not seem to be their own. They could feel it in the air, a falsely sweet fragrance that promised rest and dreams and hopes fulfilled if they would just _give in_ to its call.

They had already come to answer one call from the darkness, and no voices in the light – pale and whispered or burning and loud – could dare replace that.

But other things called to them, too. The singing of a needle and thread thrown gracefully through the air amidst a place of green and growth, a flash of red that blurred like a rare gem amongst the cooler foliage, an unnamable desire to know that melody more closely. Long hours of pursuit rewarded them with a mask that looked so much like theirs, yet the eyes held something fuller than their own nothingness. Something that spoke of life and light and not empty shadows.

She called herself Hornet, and she stung with unwavering ferocity. But she did not wield her needle to their death, and instead after relinquishing the challenge with which she greeted, she whisked herself away again, leaving them alone in that quiet, green place.

Alone with another mask hidden beneath the underbrush, cracked and empty in a way that did not reflect their own nothingness, but was familiar all the same.

**_(You’ve seen them before.)_ **

The mask belonged to a small body wrapped in a cloak that was much too big for it, but a size that was perfectly suited for themself.

**_(So you would steal this from them too?)_ **

They didn’t know this bug. The familiarity meant nothing.

**_(You left them. You left them all alone.)_ **

It had died on its own nail. They had nothing to do with it.

**_(Consumed. Stolen. Didn’t search for them. Didn’t try hard enough. Left them behind. Left them for dead. Selfish. Murderer. MURDERER.)_ **

They fitted the new cloak over their shoulders and left the Greenpath behind. They weren’t here for corpses. They had a call to answer.

**_(They’re all dead. It’s your fault.)_ **

It was time to move on.

* * *

Others called to them.

In a still place of rest for the dead, three masks reached out to them from a dream, pulling them within. The masks warned them of a weakening vessel, of a plague springing anew. They told them to return to darkness, to let them sleep in peace.

They called them little shadow.

Hornet had called them little ghost.

Were both names correct?

They did not like the dream. It was a place filled with too much light, and it called to them in a way that made their chitin itch with discomfort. It burned like that sickness, sang with false sweetness.

A vessel weakening; a plague springing anew.

They didn’t understand.

A gentler light had guided them free, and when they awoke it was to a warmth that was far less burning and all the more comforting instead. The light that saved them belonged to a moth – Seer, she called herself – and she looked at them with such fondness that they almost believed she had to be mistaken. No one looked kindly to them, not for long.

But she called them _Wielder_ , and she gifted them power and knowledge. She entrusted them with relics of her tribe, her history.

They could do nothing but humbly accept. Mistaken or not, they would not waste her kindness. It was too rare a thing, anyways.

Perhaps they would visit her again. Perhaps they could make time for other calls, after all.

* * *

Hallownest was sick, but it wasn’t entirely dead.

They had met many bugs along the road now. A soft-spoken cartographer – who never hesitated to offer them his latest map of the surrounding areas whenever their paths crossed – and his dependable shop-keeper wife – who had gently reached out and patted the top of their mask as they purchased the last of her wares – were among the first. And there had been many others, as well. The old bug who had greeted them to the town above the kingdom when they first arrived, the miner who sang with a jovial voice and welcomed them to join, despite their persistent silence, even the Mantis Lords had looked to them with honor after they proved themself worthy through combat.

And there was the lonely nailmaster whose home laid hidden among the cliffs at the kingdom’s entrance, who took the time to help them improve their skills with their blade and welcomed them as pupil. He had let them sit with him while he meditated, laughed and rubbed their mask with a softness they had never felt before, called them his own with a voice that sounded like he meant it.

They didn’t know what to make of that.

Hallownest was dying, but it wasn’t yet a tomb. Many still lived in and around the kingdom, many hadn’t yet lost hope to the burning light that plagued so many others.

They had come to answer a call from one so familiar, whose voice seemed to carry so much hurt that they couldn’t possibly think of ignoring it, but they hadn’t expected to hear the calls of so many more as well, voices alive and in front of them and wondrous and beautiful.

For the first time that they could remember, their nothingness felt full.

If there was anything they could do to preserve those voices, they would not hesitate. They would not waver.

_No cost too great._

Their nothingness roiled with the promise, and they pressed ever onward.

* * *

Rain wasn’t new to them.

They had experienced it plenty of times in the Wastelands and the far-off kingdoms in between. Yet when they first stepped out onto the cobblestoned streets of the City of Tears, it was like experiencing rain for the first time.

The kindly bug they had come to know as _“Quirrel”_ told them it was likely not true rain, but rather water trickling down from some great pool above, and they were inclined to agree. There was something about the rain in the City of Tears that felt . . . different. Older, and yet still charged with life. But it was sad, too, and with every drip and patter of droplets on the roofs above and ground below, they could imagine a song of mourning was being played in remembrance to something lost.

It wasn’t long before they got an idea of what that something might have been.

In the center of the City stood a memorial, and upon that memorial was inscribed a message. It was in memory to one known as _“The Hollow Knight”_ , and it spoke of a sacrifice it gave for Hallownest’s continuation.

But Hallownest was dying. A sickness was ravaging it.

_A call within their nothingness had reached so far for them to answer, had pleaded with such despair._

_The Hollow Knight, sealed in a black egg above._

_A strange temple at the kingdom’s entrance with a door that wouldn’t open._

_No cost too great._

What did it all mean?

The memorial included three others, and though their silhouettes were not familiar, the masks they wore were another story entirely. They were the three masks worn by those that had tried to seal them in that dream.

They had been engraved on that door, too, hadn’t they?

_Didn’t that kindly bug – Quirrel – wear a similar mask?_

The one that stood in the center, who they presumed to be the Hollow Knight, was not familiar. Couldn’t be familiar. They had never encountered one so tall before. They weren’t familiar. _It_ wasn’t familiar.

**_(Left you. They left all of you.)_ **

They had always been alone. They had never had anyone to leave them behind. There had never been _all_ ; it was only ever _them_.

**_(The light took them away. They looked back but they didn’t reach for you. You called to them and they turned away and LEFT YOU TO DIE.)_ **

Hornet called them ghost. Maybe that really was exactly what they were.

She had appeared to them again, standing before that memorial which fountained the never-ending rain in a facsimile of eternity. Telling them of void and of sacrifices, she set another challenge for them to meet her at a grave in ash.

**_(White, blowing, biting, choking, taking, killing, killing, killed them, the ash killed them, you killed them, you KILLED THEM.)_ **

They could not respond, but they looked to her with firm understanding. There was something she wanted them to do, and something deep inside of them wanted to please her, to be an ally to her.

Did she hear the call within nothingness too?

They looked back once more to the memorial, to the Hollow Knight that both tore at their carapace and settled their nothingness. Something had called to them; something waited behind that door.

Something had been sacrificed to hold back the sickness that plagued Hallownest, and that something had failed.

_Those from the dream had mentioned a weakening vessel, hadn’t they?_

And void. Hornet had spoken of two voids, both of which birthed their resilience. They did not know void; they only knew the nothingness.

But that nothingness churned at her words, at the empty eyes of the Hollow Knight statue, had churned from the very moment they first heard that call.

They gripped their nail tightly and pressed fervently on.

* * *

Something stirred beneath Hallownest.

They didn’t want to name it, but deep inside they knew what it was with unexplainable certainty. Just like how a nailsmith knows the rhythm of their anvil, they felt the pump of it like a heart that they didn’t have, beating along to a soundless tune. It swelled inside of them, swooped with both excitement and anxiety in turn, propelled them forward and held them at safety.

The nothingness inside them couldn’t have been theirs alone. Another had called to them through it, the dying breaths of Hallownest gasped with it.

And now a bug stood before them bleeding it.

Nothingness – void; that’s what Hornet had called it – dripped from the claws of this one who looked so much like the bug they had found back in the Greenpath, looked so much like _them_. But void wasn’t the only thing this one bled.

Burning light mingled with chilling dark, pooling where their eyes should have been and bubbling from a crater in their mask.

Sickness. Plague.

Infection.

They had battled plenty of infected bugs by now, killed them without sparing more than a quick thought of mourning for the life already long-lost. Whatever this infection was, it had taken the life of its hosts long ago, and ending their reanimation quickly was a mercy. It was necessary. It was _easy_.

This one wasn’t easy.

It—they, they fought well. Almost better than _they_ did. But their movements were jerked, and they staggered easily. They must have been infected for a long time, for at one point when they got too close they could see their chitin had eroded in some places, as if from poison.

**_(Or acid.)_ **

There were no acid pools in this part of the kingdom. It was the infection; it was _just the infection._

**_(White, ash, blinding, choking, falling, falling, falling, let them fall, you let them fall, you didn’t catch them you LET THEM FALL.)_ **

There was no ash, there was nothing choking the air besides the sickly-sweet aroma of burning plague. They’d always been alone; they hadn’t lost anyone. _No one had fallen._

**_(You fell. You fell and you hurt and the smaller one like you didn’t reach for you. They looked back but they didn’t reach, and they let you fall, and you let this one fall and you never went to save them you coward, murderer, MURDERER. IT’S YOUR FAULT YOU KILLED THEM. YOU KILLED THEM. WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?!)_ **

This bug was bigger than they were, their cloak patched and well-worn and once upon a time it might have been loved. Maybe someone made it for them. Maybe someone was missing them.

Maybe that someone was already dead.

Whatever drove the infection was as loud as it was bright. They could hear it in the bugs they fought who screamed and wailed with rage that didn’t feel like it belonged to them. They could feel it in the way it brushed against their mind anytime they approached an enemy with the dreamnail the elder moth had gifted them. And standing before them now, the bug who looked too familiar – too much like them – and yet _couldn’t be_ shrieked with jarring vibrations as they attacked with a downward blow of their nail, as if their life depended on the entirety of Hallownest heeding their cries.

They briefly thought that such noise didn’t suit them before the nail pierced into their shoulder.

They’d been injured before, felt their nothingness – their void – burst forth from their mask in rage and regret at their weakness. They’d learned how to pick up their remains and shove that void back inside, the darkness carefully sealing closed the broken seams.

They didn’t fear death; they were already a ghost, after all.

**_(The others never learned. You took that from them too, didn’t you?)_ **

Pain, however, wasn’t as easy as dying. And when they stumbled back from the attack, void spilling down the front of their cloak and their steps shaky and weak with the shock and agony of it all, some forgotten part of them felt an old fear creep up their spine.

**_(Do you remember how they used to break? How their masks would fly apart in shards and their carapaces would turn to mush as they hit the ground? Do you remember watching them fall apart? They all broke in the end. Someday, you will too.)_ **

They steadied their stance, watched as the other one dashed to the far end of the room, and _focused._

Dark was all they knew, all they understood. But sometimes there was a light. Pale and dazzling and dangerous. It soothed them, healed them, empowered them.

Hallownest was filled with that light.

They’d always _hated it_.

But when it was time to fight, and the difficulties of dealing with their shadow would be more disastrous than worth the effort, they called upon that pale light to push them further. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, if they could bend it to their will, they would do so without hesitation.

Even enemies could be made useful.

The other one was preparing to charge, nail brought back and posed for a blow. But they didn’t wait for them to come. Whatever last dregs of pale light remained after their focus they forced forward from themself in a twisted approximation of a spell they had learned from a snail shaman weeks ago, now tainted with their own nothingness and all the more powerful for it.

The spell was enough to stun the other, and that bought them just enough time to strike.

Their nail met little resistance from the other’s carapace, the space around their lower thorax already soft and dripping with erosion and infection. They angled their nail upwards and _yanked_ it free, tearing open the other’s chest.

Infection doused them like a fountain, and the so-familiar-bug fell limp.

They lowered their nail as they backed away to a safe distance, watching to see if the other would rise again.

For a moment their mask lifted, and where the eyes had once been orange and bright were now as dark and empty as their own. A shaking hand reached out towards them, barely held above the ground in their trembling.

**_(Are you going to let them fall again? Just like before? Just like that smaller one did to you?)_ **

They stumbled forward, dropping their nail and tripping in their haste.

The other’s hand fell to the floor, their mask following a brief moment later. Those eyes were filled with a different sort of emptiness now.

They didn’t reach them in time.

**_(Who else are you going to fail?)_ **

They picked up their nail, and without another thought, left the room behind.

* * *

It wasn’t ash, not really.

The edge of the kingdom was buried in it, the air filled with swirling, oily flakes of white that did its best to cloud their vision. But it wasn’t ash. It was molt, specifically molt from the abandoned shell of a long-dead wyrm.

The wyrm had brought pale light to Hallownest, had given the kingdom a name and a mark in eternity.

That pale light had followed them in the Wastelands, stood as lonely companion alongside their nothingness, but that wasn’t something they wanted to think about.

Hornet had been true to her word and waited for them there, at the entrance to the tomb of the pale wyrm. She challenged their strength once more, and when they proved they could stand against her still, she bid them claim a mark that would brand themself as king.

The pale wyrm had once been the king. They had nothing to do with that, _wanted_ nothing to do with that. But Hornet didn’t explain further, and they couldn’t question.

Ghost. She still called them a ghost; did she save this descriptor only for them? Were the other ones who looked so much like them ghosts too? Were they all dead, wandering spirits who were unable to pass on?

**_(They all died in the dark, and the ones who didn’t you killed in the light. Smaller one’s fault. Light’s fault. Dark’s fault. Your fault.)_ **

How did Hornet know so much about them, so much more than even they knew about themself? They wanted to ask, wished so fervently that they could form the words, but void didn’t speak. Not outside of the dark. Not to bugs.

They didn’t think they were a bug; maybe they never had been.

Maybe the ones who looked like them weren’t either.

There were pieces still missing, chunks of information they didn’t understand, and messages presented to them that they couldn’t parse. Hallownest was rich with secrets and mysteries waiting to be torn open, but how much of that was theirs for the taking?

How tied were they to this wretched place?

The mark didn’t give them answers, only more questions. It stung with the pale light that had protected them their whole life, and yet sickened them to their core. It whispered of hidden places to be opened, and truths to uncover.

Would those truths be better left alone?

They weren’t granted long to consider the mark or their questions, as whatever power the mark held must have been what kept the grave stable, and without that power the shell around them began to crumble. It could have buried them, _should have_ buried them.

**_(Choking, all choking. The bigger one fell and you didn’t go after them because the ash choked so much it hurt, it hurt, it all hurt and the other one hurt and you couldn’t leave them behind to choke and be buried by the ash but the bigger one fell and you just let them fall because you’re selfish and didn’t want to choke, how could you, how COULD YOU?)_ **

Wind blew against their mask, and like a faraway lullaby they could hear a needle sing. They weren’t buried; they weren’t choking.

A flash of red passed before them, and then with a final note it was gone.

* * *

They’d hoped to never return to that place, but the mark pulled them back into the quiet cavern below, where void pulsed like Hallownest’s heart, and it was becoming apparent that ignoring calls was going to be more and more difficult.

There was no reason to go back to that room where the other one would be **_(where they had fallen again)_** , and they had already taken the monarch wings from the edge of the Basin, so that place could be forgotten.

_They_ could be forgotten.

**_(But you’ve already done that once, haven’t you?)_ **

A tablet stood before them, like so many others they had seen in Hallownest, this one whispering of refuses and regrets. And a pure vessel that had ascended, giving reason for the pale light to seal whatever still remained behind in the dark.

**_(The light stole them; they both left you all to die.)_ **

The mark glowed against their outstretched hand and against the door before them, whatever power having kept it sealed for so long finally wearing away. And with that final barrier banished, the nothingness inside them roiled with elation not entirely their own.

**_(It calls. It wants you to rejoin, like all of the others. Like their shadows who tore them apart and held them under until they stopped squirming and became one with the void again.)_ **

With the practiced ease of ages spent brandishing a weapon, they secured their nail to their back, and leapt into the dark.

**_(Remember them falling? Bigger ones, smaller ones, even you fell. Remember how they cracked and would spasm before going limp?)_ **

The way down was precarious, shadow creepers patrolling the platforms and spikes lining the sides. It would have been a wonder that they didn’t lose their footing or make a fatal misstep, but they had long-since become swift on their feet and deft in their landings. The descent was almost child’s play.

**_(It’s always been child’s play. You were all children back then; and you’re still practically a child now, aren’t you?)_ **

It took some time, but eventually they finally reached the bottom, and when their feet hit the floor they were almost not alarmed by the sound of rattling pieces of broken masks beneath their claws.

**_(Seen them all before. Helped bury so many of them. Too many, you ran out of room. Of course it wouldn’t be alarming.)_ **

Whatever reason they had for coming here, they needed to see to it quickly. This was not a place they wanted to linger; there would be no time for reminiscing on things better forgotten.

**_(Welcome home, little ghost. The others are waiting. It is waiting.)_ **

Abyss. Somehow, they knew that was this place’s name. Someone must have told them, long ago. Someone important. Someone forgotten.

They didn’t dawdle, there were other calls to answer.

This place was indeed full of shadows, all of them much like their own. They lashed out and hit with ferocity, and when they struck them with their own nail, sending them back down into the ground below, they did not leave behind that pale light to be consumed like their other fallen foes had.

There was probably a reason for that.

It wasn’t important now.

Eventually they came across a great lake, thrashing and churning with tendrils of darkness that they knew to be void. This must be the heart they had sensed before, but they weren’t sure _“heart”_ was such an appropriate term for it. Whatever gave the void purpose, it wasn’t something alive.

There was a lighthouse on the shore, one easily enough scaled and with a light mechanism that still contained living lumaflies. It turned on without resistance, and the lake below calmed under its brilliance.

It must have seen use at some time. There was the body of a bug long-dead lying within, after all. Whatever their last thoughts had meant, the dreamnail could only do so much to help parse.

It didn’t matter. They weren’t here for them, or the void lake below. They only cared about answering that call, that first plea, and bringing about an end to this plague that made all of those other friendly bugs suffer or feel lonely. Mysteries in the dark could wait for another eternity.

The place that lied beyond the lake wasn’t any clearer in its secrets, but it did bear something of use. A pool, held aloft in some sort of stone basin by a visage of a creature they didn’t understand, rippled and pulled them forward. It bathed them in the void that already made up their insides, but now it stained their cloak in that comforting nothingness.

The cloak they had taken from the body of that other one, far above in the Greenpath.

For reasons they couldn’t explain, something about that made them feel unpleasantly empty.

**_(It’s what they would have wanted. The dark wasn’t kind, but it was home. Safer than the light. Safer than above.)_ **

Nothing in Hallownest was safe. They hadn’t felt true safety in a long time.

**_(Would have broken, anyways. You could have at least let them break with everyone else. Instead they broke alone, and it’s all your fault.)_ **

There was still more of the Abyss to investigate. Pulling the shadowed cloak more securely around themself, they set off back towards the lake.

The Abyss wasn’t large, not compared to other parts of Hallownest, but it took them longer than they would have liked to reach the other end. Their efforts had been rewarded, though, as in the last room on the far west side they came across some sort of stone plinth. And after several minutes of frustrated searching, slashing, jumping, and eventual fits of blasting every spell they knew in hopes of finding some purpose for this room, they were finally rewarded with cumulated void tainting another spell originally composed of that pale light.

They weren’t sure they trusted void, but it felt better than light, and it certainly wasn’t a small amount of satisfaction that they found in corrupting it into something more suitable for shadows.

**_(Little ghosts like you don’t belong in the light. You weren’t pure enough to earn it. None of you were.)_ **

By the time they climbed back to the entrance of the Abyss, ready to leave whatever forgotten unpleasantness lingered in its depths behind once and for all, they were nearly dead on their feet – so to speak. How long had it been since they rested?

Maybe they would return to Dirtmouth, or to the nailmaster. When had they last spoken to one of those friendly bugs? Far too long ago; they shouldn’t forsake such rare kindness so thoughtlessly.

But they weren’t alone when they reached the top, and what at first brought up feelings of apprehension died immediately as the sight of red replaced distorted flashes of glowing white.

Hornet.

She called them ghost again, and somehow coming from her, it didn’t sound like such a sad thing. They didn’t understand many of her words, confused by how she considered them as being from a similar source to herself, and yet admitting that she did not possess the nothingness that was so crucial to their existence. But something in her words tugged at their chest, made that nothingness flutter in a way they couldn’t quite comprehend.

She had fought with strings of pale light, those times she challenged them before. Pale light so much like what they used for spells, for _healing_ , and at the same time filled them with pain.

There was so much of this pale light in Hallownest.

The mark from the corpse of the pale wyrm glowed with it. The pale king whom they had heard of that ruled this land supposedly exuded it.

**_(The pale light stole the smaller one like you away and left the rest of you to die in the dark.)_ **

. . . Who was he?

Hornet had also given them a warning; a challenge to face the source of the sickness, the infection. To conquer it or allow the stasis that held Hallownest together like an inanimate puppet on strings to continue in endless perpetuation. She urged them not to choose the latter, but there was something sorrowful in her words as she spoke them.

Did it hurt her watching the kingdom die too?

They hadn’t attempted to communicate with her before, had considered it pointless without any means of verbalizing their thoughts in a way she could understand. But standing before them, with a shadow over her mask that had nothing to do with the void far below, they found yet another call they couldn’t bear to ignore.

They reached out a hand and carefully took one of her own.

She had stiffened and glared down at them with a look that appeared to be some parts confusion and shock as well as something entirely else, but she hadn’t pulled away. And when they looked up to her with empty eyes that they so desperately hoped conveyed a fervent promise that whatever it took they would end the things that hurt her so terribly, she did not turn away from them.

They gave her hand a final squeeze and left the shadows behind. There would be time for facing them later.

For now, they needed rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1 This was going to be a backstory in two acts but uh, it's gonna be three now so -throws confetti-  
> 2 I decided to give Ghost the intrusive thoughts because on a technical level it helps with the lack of dialogue in this piece. But on a Vibes level it works very much to my liking, and any chance I can get to throw something even close to resembling auditory hallucinations on my favs I will (because I am a simple man who wants validation and good rep).  
> 3 To the folks who helped beta this for me, you are all wonderful and amazing and I owe you my soul.


End file.
